The untold stories of the working people of South Bristol - from the mines of 100 years ago to the tobacco factories of 50 years ago - are finally to be told in a big history festival that begins south of the river on Thursday.
The South Bristol History Festival is being organised by three of the area’s local councillors, who say that the history made south of the river has been neglected or overlooked in the wider story Bristol’s establishment has told itself over the years.
So the factories and mines, workhouses and developments that shaped generations of South Bristol people over the past two centuries have barely featured in the museums and official histories of Bristol.
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But now, in an attempt to redress the balance and tell the stories from Bedminster to Hartcliffe, a series of free talks, lectures and events are taking place over the next few weeks.
Those behind the festival say they are championing the concept of ‘history from below’ - where instead of history being about kings, queens, politicians, businessmen and those in charge, the real history comes from the ordinary people who lived it.
The festival is being organised by two Southville councillors - Christine Townsend and Tony Dyer, who both have parents, grandparents and ancestors who working in the tobacco factories and mines of South Bristol - and Hartcliffe councillor Kerry Bailes, under the umbrella of the Bristol Radical History Group.
“There is a sense that a lot of South Bristol history, and Bedminster’s in particular, has been lost - or not told in the first place,” said Tony Dyer. “The area is going through a lot of change and in times like that, it’s often very useful to provide the opportunity to find out more about the history of an area, so the community that changes can feel part of the place,” he added.
“This is about history from below - it’s about how normal, everyday working class people impacted on the local, national and international history,” explained Christine Townsend. “But these people have been written out of history before, because history has always been written by the people in charge who want to tell everyone they were the ones involved,” she added.
Cllr Dyer said there would be a huge amount for people to find out - both the generations who can still remember the tobacco factories in Bedminster, the great moves up to places like Knowle West, Hengrove, Hartcliffe and Withywood, and the changes that South Bristol has seen over the past century or more.
“It is our family roots,” said Cllr Dyer. “Both side of my family were down in the coal mines, but apart from a little plaque, there is nothing left anywhere to acknowledge that this area was full of coal mines.
“It might be something people see when they buy a house here and there’s a report from the coal board, but that doesn’t say anything about how South Bristol was built on coal mines and tobacco factories. There is an older population that still remains living in the area, or that have family stories and family history - everyone will have their own oral histories of, say, a relative or mum or grandparent working in the tobacco factories, and a lot of the festival is encourage people to come forward with their own stories - they are just as valid,” he added.
A total of eight different events have so far been scheduled. The programme begins on Thursday, September 15, at the Tobacco Factory itself, with a talk from Helen Thomas, who conducted a community oral history project in 2014, taking the lived history stories from the local people who worked in the tobacco factories of Bedminster and Ashton.
“It offers an understanding of the social fabric of the Bedminster area, and the economic forces which have shaped our community,” said a festival spokesperson. “Helen will provide an overview of the manufacturing processes and how they changed over time; and an insight into what it was like for the workers: recruitment, working conditions, hierarchies and segregation, welfare provision and leisure. The presentation will include a large number of photographs of the factories and those who worked in them,” they added.
Next week, there are two more events - including an exploration of the case of Hannah Wiltshire, whose death in the Bedminster Workhouse in 1855 caused a national scandal, and the story of the post-war mass squatting of families in empty buildings in Ashton Gate in 1946.
The full programme is:
Thu 15th Sep, 6.30pm - Tobacco Factory, North Street, Ashton Gate: Tobacco Women
Tue 20th Sep, 2pm - Bedminster Library - Bedminster Workhouse: The Life and Death of Hannah Wiltshire
Thu 22nd Sep, 6:30pm - Tobacco Factory: Stolen Paradise: the post-war squatting movement in Bristol
Tue 27th Sep, 2pm - Bedminster Library: Taking a Holiday, a film about war resistance in Bedminster in World War I
Tue 4th Oct, 2pm - Bedminster Library: Mining in Bedminster and the Dean Lane pit disaster
Thu 6th Oct, 6:30pm - Southville Centre: Girls, Wives, Factory Lives’ – looking back to Churchmans after 50 years
Tue 11th Oct, 2:00pm - Bedminster Library: The Gas Girls – a hidden history of World War One
Thu 13th Oct, 6:30pm - Tobacco Factory: Nicotiana Brittanica – tobacco and forced labour
Read next:
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The amazing doctor who dedicated his life to the people of Hartcliffe finally retires
TV riots and bingo machines - the amazing story of Bristol's most famous tower block
South Bristol's GPs and schools won't cope with 12,000 new homes claims MP
Last part of South Bristol's tobacco factory wasteland is finally being built on
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